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This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading.

We all know that leaders need vision and energy, but after an exhaustive review of the most influential theories on leadership--as well as workshops with thousands of leaders and aspiring leaders--the authors learned that great leaders also share four unexpected qualities: 1) They selectively reveal their weaknesses; 2) They rely heavily on intuition to gauge the appropriate timing and course of their actions; 3) They manage employees with "tough empathy"; and 4) They capitalize on their differences. All four qualities are necessary for inspirational leadership, but they cannot be used mechanically; they must be mixed and matched to meet the demands of particular situations. Most important, however, is that the qualities encourage authenticity among leaders. To be a true leader, the authors advise, "Be yourself--more--with skill."

learning objective:

To discover key qualities leaders must possess to inspire their followers to excel.

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No organization can fulfill every hope and desire of its employees, so it helps to know which ones matter most to people. Goffee and Jones have identified the six most essential imperatives for creating an ideal work environment. Their insights come from surveys and interviews of hundreds of executives from all over the world. Few organizations embody all six attributes of the dream organization, many are difficult to achieve, and some even conflict with one another. But they nonetheless stand as an agenda for executives who wish to create the most productive, most rewarding workplace imaginable. Agenda: (1) Let people be themselves. (2) Unleash the flow of information. (3) Magnify people's strengths. (4) Stand for more than shareholder value. (5) Show how the daily work makes sense. (6) Have rules people can believe in. This list contains no surprises, but implementing the elements is no easy task. Almost all of them require leaders to carefully balance competing interests and to reallocate their time and attention. Companies like Arup, LVMH, Waitrose, and even McDonald's are doing it to varying degrees. Your challenge is to match--and then to exceed--what they have managed to accomplish.

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If your company is like most, it has a handful of people who generate disproportionate quantities of value: A researcher creates products that bankroll the entire organization for decades. A manager spots consumer-spending patterns no one else sees and defines new market categories your enterprise can serve. A strategist anticipates global changes and correctly interprets their business implications. Companies' competitiveness, even survival, increasingly hinge on such "clever people." But the truth is, clever people are as fiercely independent as they are clever-they don't want to be led. So how do you corral these players in your organization and inspire them to achieve their highest potential? In Clever, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones offer potent insights drawn from their extensive research. The authors explain how to: -Identify your clever people and their motivations -Shelter your "clevers" from political distractions that can inhibit their productivity -Help clevers generate even more value by creating clever teams -Manage the unique tensions that can arise when clevers work together Leading clever people can be enormously challenging, yet doing so effectively is the key to your organization's sustained success. Lively and engaging, this book provides the ideas, practices, and examples you need to create an environment where your most brilliant people can flourish.

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This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice, along with suggestions for further reading.

In an economy driven by ideas and intellectual know-how, top executives recognize the importance of employing smart, highly creative people. But if clever people have one defining characteristic, it's that they do not want to be led. So what is a leader to do? The authors conducted more than 100 interviews with leaders and their clever people at major organizations such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cisco Systems, Novartis, the BBC, and Roche. What they learned is that the psychological relationships effective leaders have with their clever people are very different from the ones they have with traditional followers. Those relationships can be shaped by seven characteristics that clever people share: They know their worth--and they know you have to employ them if you want their tacit skills. They are organizationally savvy and will seek the company context in which their interests are most generously funded. They ignore corporate hierarchy; although intellectual status is important to them, you can't lure them with promotions. They expect instant access to top management, and if they don't get it, they may think the organization doesn't take their work seriously. They are plugged into highly developed knowledge networks, which both increases their value and makes them more of a flight risk. They have a low boredom threshold, so you have to keep them challenged and committed. They won't thank you--even when you're leading them well. The trick is to act like a benevolent guardian: to grant them the respect and recognition they demand, protect them from organizational rules and politics, and give them room to pursue private efforts and even to fail. The payoff will be a flourishing crop of creative minds that will enrich your whole organization.

The HBR Spotlight on How to Manage the Most Talented considers talent management from two distinct points of view. The first is how executives can best manage their most promising direct reports. The second is more about self-management: It focuses on what overachievers can do to anticipate and prevent their own rough patches. Managing top talent isn't easy--but it's the most important job the majority of HBR readers have to do. And it can be done well. 2007 McKinsey Award winner

learning objective:

To gain familiarity with managerial practices that can help companies elicit top performance from their creative employees.

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Too many companies are managed not by leaders, but by mere role players and faceless bureaucrats. What does it take to be a real leader--one who is confident in who she is and what she stands for and who truly inspires people to achieve extraordinary results? Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones argue that leaders don't become great by aspiring to a list of universal character traits. Rather, effective leaders are authentic: They deploy individual strengths to engage followers' hearts, minds, and souls. They are skillful at consistently being themselves, even as they alter their behaviors to respond effectively in changing contexts. In this lively and practical book, Goffee and Jones draw from extensive research to reveal how to hone and deploy one's unique leadership assets while managing the inherent tensions at the heart of successful leadership: showing emotion and withholding it, getting close to followers while keeping distance, and maintaining individuality while "conforming enough." Underscoring the social nature of leadership, the book also explores how leaders can remain attuned to the needs and expectations of followers. "Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?" changes forever how we view, develop, and practice the art of leadership, wherever we live and work.

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Effective leaders pay careful attention to how they are seen and heard. This chapter explores the ways in which leaders construct compelling narratives about themselves and their contexts, and the ways in which they identify the channels of communication that work best for them.

learning objective:

To examine why communicating with care is so important in the leadership relationship.

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Leadership is complicated, and the secrets of great leadership resist simple recipes. The fact is that leadership is a risky occupation. This chapter revisits some important strategies for achieving authentic leadership, assuring leaders that whatever the price of taking risks, the prize is worth it.

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The exercise of leadership is always contextual, and effective leadership involves recognizing the limitations of context as well as the potential opportunities. This chapter explores how to develop a keen situation-sensing ability, the skill necessary to read and interpret diverse situations.

learning objective:

To help you improve your sensing capabilities in order to understand what can and cannot be changed.

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Leaders at all levels make a difference to performance. They do so because they make performance meaningful. This chapter examines the modern obsession with the quest for authenticity, describing why authentic leadership in particular has become such a prized organizational and individual asset.

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It is unlikely that as a leader you will be able to inspire, arouse, excite, or motivate people unless you can show them who you are, what you stand for, and what you can and cannot do. This chapter explores how leaders come to know and deploy their differences and illustrates the impact this has on their followers.

learning objective:

To encourage knowing yourself, being yourself, and disclosing yourself in order to lead more effectively.

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